Interactive Fiction with Gargoyle for the Iliad

[Adam B.]

I have gargoyle compiled and working on the iLiad. This looks and works pretty well.

Gargoyle is an IF player that supports all the major interactive fiction formats.

Most interactive fiction is distributed as portable game files. These portable game files come in many formats. In the past, you used to have to download a separate player (interpreter) for each format of IF you wanted to play.

Right now, you will need to edit run.sh in order for it to open a different book. I've included the original Zork game as a sample.

I'll admit, I've never gotten into interactive fiction before. I played Zork a little bit when I was a kid, but that's because it was included in a larger game pack I had bought. I also read those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books when I was really young. I'm not sure if that's the same thing though. Maybe someone who knows more about gargoyle and interactive fiction can help out...

[NatCh]

Okay, now I'm officially jealous.

Seriously, though: well done (but I really am jealous).

[Adam B.]

Do you read interactive fiction? Where do you get it from? Is it like a book, or a game? Any examples?

I'm still trying to figure out the window thing...It looks like gargoyle is a bunch of programs running from a single launcher. I'm not sure if I'll have to modify each and every one, or if there's a single window manager.

Another problem is launching a book. Without modifying contentlister, a book needs to be launched from a command or shell script. This isn't easy for the average person.

[NatCh]

Interactive fiction is a game style from (waaaaay back) in the 1980s -- before graphics were much to sneeze at. I haven't really played it much in years (I actually have a Palm app that runs them).

There are a number of web-sites that have IF, including a few that let you play it online, without downloading anything, which is pretty ironic considering its origins.

Wikipedia (unsurprisingly) has a good write-up of it, including a modest collection of links to sites, if you want more detail.

[scotty1024]

Tools for creating as well as an archive of public domain IF's can be found here.

http://www.ifarchive.org/

[vranghel]

Never heard of Interactive fiction before, but from what i read on Wikipedia it sounds a bit like text-based strategy game(of sorts). Interesting nontheless!

[nekokami]

Yay!

Now we just need the HWR in an input line at the bottom.

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Yay!

Now we just need the HWR in an input line at the bottom.

Already Done.

[Adam B.]

Well, It's almost a user-ready release. Right now, when the program launches, the window is still hidden a bit by the keyboard. You will have to drag it to the top a little in order to see your input.

If this is a non-issue, or if someone has a quick gtk solution, let me know and I'll fix and post.

Edit: As a short term solution, I just made the window a bit smaller, so it would still fit everything in while being centered. This isn't ideal, but it works. First post updated with program.

[kapoira]

thanks you are my hero for today,... now for the rest of the weekend i will try this, thanks

[scotty1024]

Adam, Zork is copyrighted by Activision. The Hugo Zork you've included in your zip file even admits it is used without permission:

http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/...o/hugozork.hug

I'm planning on including the Colossal Cave (Advent.z5) with my Java IF Viewer, it appears to be freely available:

http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-...mesXzcode.html

[JSWolf]

Actually, the term "interactive fiction" is all wrong. Back when Colossal Cave and Zork and others were written then correct term used was Adventure These are adventure games, not interactive fiction. Please use the correct labeling of these games.

[HarryT]

"Interactive Fiction" is the term that's been the standard one for the last 20 years or so, Jon. It's gone way beyond the original adventure games; take a look at the IF archive site - many of the modern "games" are more like novels. There are active Usenet newsgroups "rec.games.int-fiction" and "rec.arts.int-fiction", reflecting the original "game" and the "literary" types of IF.

[DeGodefroi]

Hmm I have known the type as text adventures.
But nicely done Adam B. ! Umm are you trying to kill our last drops of free time with such ports? :-)

[Sunn Sunn]

How do I get started using this program and other programs?

I've only had my iLiad for a couple of days and I don't really know what "unbricking" and so on means. I'm a programmer, I'm familiar with Unix and GNU/Linux and I've used Gargoyle a lot on my main Debian machine, but my iLiad is still set to the factory defaults; I haven't got any apps installed.

I have a lot of IF I want to read, starting with Spider and Web which is in z-machine format.

http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html

I'm thankful for any advice and pointers!